Cardinal Jozef Glemp

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Glemp: in the newly democratic Poland after communism he worked hard to establish religious education in schoolsLeszek Lozynski/EPA

Last updated at 12:01AM, January 25 2013

Long-serving Primate of Poland who steered his Church through the turbulent years of transition from communism to democracy

In July 1981 Jozef Glemp was appointed Primate of Poland by his compatriot Pope John Paul II — a moment of high drama in Poland’s postwar history. Less than 12 months had elapsed since the Poles had become the first people in the Communist world to establish a free trade union, Solidarnosc (Solidarity) which, with ten million members and the support of the strongest Church in Eastern Europe, was now insisting on the nation’s right to call its Communist rulers to account.

There were many in Poland and abroad who wondered at Pope John Paul’s choice of Glemp to succeed the